Rizal dedicated his novel El filibusterismo to the three priests executed in consequence of the Cavite uprising of 1872. That dedication is as follows: "The Church, by refusing to degrade you, has placed in doubt the crime that has been imputed to you; the Government, by surrounding your trials with mystery and shadows, causes the belief that there was some error, committed in fatal moments; and all the Philippines, by worshiping your memory and calling you martyrs, in no sense recognize your culpability. In so far, therefore, as your complicity in the Cavite mutiny is not clearly proved, as you may or may not have been patriots, and as you may or may not have cherished sentiments for justice and for liberty, I have the right to dedicate my work to you as victims of the evil which I undertake to combat. And while we wait expectantly upon Spain some day to restore your good name and cease to be answerable for your death, let these pages serve as a tardy wreath of dried leaves over your unknown tombs, and let it be understood that every one who without clear proofs attacks your memory stains his hands in your blood!" See J. A. LeRoy's Philippine Life, pp. 149, 150.--Eds. [122] No real attempt to sift the evidence in the case is known to the writer. Montero y Vidal, Historia, iii, chap. xxvii (also read the three preceding chapters), gives the version of one side, with principal citations. Cf. Pardo de Tavera's Biblioteca under these names, and see his version in Census of the Philippine Islands, i, pp. 575-579. His Reseña histórica de Filipinas suffered some alterations as published in the Spanish edition of the Census, and was separately printed at Manila in 1906, drawing forth a series of articles in the Dominican periodical Libertas (by Friar Tamayo), which also appeared in pamphlet form (Sobre una "Reseña histórica de Filipinas," Manila, 1906). As regards the 1872 affair, Friar Tamayo has drawn almost entirely from Montero y Vidal. [123] As, for example, when José Rizal, yet a mere youth, scandalized the friar and "patriotic" Spaniards in Manila by presenting verses for a school celebration in Manila on "Mi patria" ("My fatherland"). [124] Rizal himself returned from Europe to the Orient in 1887, and visited his home, but was persuaded by parents and friends to go abroad again. He is said to have edited various circulars which were sent from Hongkong and distributed in the Philippines.